The economic changes in Mexico's productive sectors since the 1980s have caused the state of Sinaloa to become an ejector of qualified population, while at the same time attracting indigenous population. The protagonists of immigration and emigration in Sinaloa are different types of workers; the former consists mostly of underprivileged indigenous peasant groups from the southern part of the country, while the latter is made up of the state's educated endemic population, who choose to leave and move to the northern states of the country and to the United States in search of better prospects.